


A little ways away

by Poppyseed



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Hybrid Louis, Hybrid Niall, Hybrids, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 23:00:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7457176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poppyseed/pseuds/Poppyseed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>There's hybrids in this, sorry for that lol!</p>
    </blockquote>





	A little ways away

**Author's Note:**

> There's hybrids in this, sorry for that lol!

It’s between two buildings, a run-down coffee chain store shedding some old skin, peeled and cracking paint and what looks like used to be a generic restaurant if the systematically exposed brick walls and posters of artisanal cheeses browning with decay are anything to go buy. Still showing some hints of the pretty promenade that used to stand there. The sea is still salty and blue and the street is quiet with that ghost town sort of charm that makes you want to walk down a lonely alley just to see if anything will jump out at you.

 

It’s innocuous as ever, which may be the entire purpose of the location, in the back room of some former grease pit that Liam bargains and brokers and raises his voice when need be. Whatever reason he dragged Zayn to this sit-down for is beyond him. Maybe he needed something to throw at them in case things go south, if they weren’t very much already there he thinks. For the most part Zayn limits his interactions, he knows he’s pretty useless under the circumstances but he still follows everything unfolding in front of him with a strange fascination. 

 

But Li’s got his leather on, angered but accessible, concerned and calm; a duck in the water going a mile a minute. 

 

“If we leave here with nothing, it’ll look bad.” Liam edges next him in hushed tones and Zayn does his best to look terribly affected. He probably feels the pressure but there’s not much Zayn can do about that.

 

“I know,” he pauses and switches his weight around, “we could ask them to maybe raise their curfew.” He says but it’s a shitty microcosm of a solution to an unsolvable problem, a compromise and distraction. It’s better than having to admit the truth. That they really, truly have no idea what to do.

 

The kid who died, Keith? Keegan? Something definitely starting with a K, 16 years old and a consummate asshole. Nobody is going to want to remember that though. He was human and died on the wrong side of the fence that’s what matters.  
Liam’s expression paints nothing but scepticism, still he nods and turns to the faces waiting on his answer. It’s a little jarring taking it all in. They’re outnumbered and definitely out-skilled yet somehow they are the ones calling the shots. 

 

-

 

The way home is uncomfortable and the conversation is slightly disjointed. They keep doing this, more lately. Drawn out lulls, that would be welcome any other time but are strained with things they don’t say now. The sun is setting and Zayn looks back from where they came from. It’s crazy to think but the city seems to be regurgitating itself and it’s not just the people, it’s everything. ………But in that moment the way the sunlight hits its façade, it reminds him of the stillness in the air after a storm.

 

“Is your Dad going to be mad?” Zayn says turning to face him.

 

Liam shrugs but doesn’t take his eyes of the road when he replies, “probably, but that doesn’t matter, he should have been here.”

 

Zayn considers how the meeting would have gone if Liam’s father had been there, maybe not as much pussyfooting would have been entertained. “Harry keeps fucking up. Should have gotten rid of the body before anybody found it.”

 

“Cut him some slack he’s new”

 

“It’s been 8 months”

 

Liam pauses in thought, “really?”

 

“Yes, really.”

 

-

 

At HQ, they have to cross a double electric fence and big steel gate spectacularly manned by probably 30 guards and tends to give off the impression that they are the ones locked in instead of keeping everything else out. Once Liam flashes his winning smile they are let into the inner sanctum.

 

The briefing room is nothing but a cobbled together shed on the grounds of Liam’s family home. Zayn’s only been in there a handful of times and he still doesn’t understand the emphasis they put on the word when discussing ‘The Room’ all sombre and staid like it was a whole other person in the conversation. There’s a TV monitor and some sort of transmitter on a table, a map of the town from decades ago, an old wooden chair, an omnipresent stack of files which he’s sure are emblazoned with the words ‘TOP SECRET’ in bright red on each one.

 

They get inside and the door is immediately bolted up behind them by one of the hundred guards mooching around. Liam goes to lean on the table leaving Zan in the middle of the room shoving his hands into his pockets because he’s afraid they might be sweaty when Liam’s dad comes over to give his hand an insistent squeeze. 

“Psst, what do you think are on those files?” Zayn half-jokes.

Li spares them a glance but his answer dissolves from his lips when they hear someone on the outside of the door.

 

-

 

“You wanna come over?”

 

Her hair is in a messy braid that goes all the way down to the small of her back, there’s flyaways falling all around her face and it’s somehow still so excruciatingly perfect. Her head is leaning on Liam’s shoulder looking back at Zayn with these big brown soft eyes. Liam snakes his arm around her waist and looks like he just won the lottery.

He thinks about the quarter a mile he would have to walk up the stony path to Liam’s house, one of those big grand ones that remind you of crinolines and sweet tea. He thinks of the earful they just got from Liam’s father for doing a sub-par job and the evening that he’ll have inadvertently set out for himself by agreeing. 

Her little green dress flutters in the evening chill and her pouty lips curve into a smile when Liam moves his hand to gently stroke her arm.

 

He bounces on the balls of his feet and makes sure the absolute delight is clear in his voice when he says, “No.”

 

The night felt much more like a stake-out than a patrol. Well there was no take out, the one with the rice and the orange chicken, the binoculars and the black van with surveillance equipment, nah nothing too elaborate. There was though a tenuous camaraderie between the two of them which he was going to hold on to until the end of the night or until one of them doused the awkwardness. It was weird and the one thing he had hoped it would never be between them was weird.

 

“Who’s on Warren Street?”

 

Liam scratches the side of his face and fakes like he doesn’t know the roster by heart, “I think Danny and, someone can’t remember who. Why? You wanna get a transfer?” And he gives a tentative smile.

Zayn suddenly feels bad for trying to make easy conversation, “No I was just asking.” 

 

“I was joking Z, chill out.” Liam kind of genuinely smiles this time.

 

“You have a funny...” But he trails off before when something catches his eye. In the darkness, right next to the health centre, there was something definitely moving in the darkness. 

 

“What?” Liam asks more than once.

 

“Look, look, there!” he says without taking his eyes away, pointing with his index finger with one hand and squeezing Liam’s arm a little too hard with the other.

 

It takes a second but Liam sees it too, “Shit.”

 

During the many nights they had spent in this bucket of bolts Jeep nothing nearly exciting ever happened. It might have something to do with Liam’s father being the Mayor that they were on this route. Or maybe it was just a coincidence that they were watching the couple of blocks that were essentially geriatric city.

 

They look at each other in a heavy silence for a moment before Liam pulls out his gun and says ‘shit’ once more. Zayn just then realizes that this is also would be the first time he would ever have to use his firearm. 

 

They get out of the car as the shadowy figure moves around seemingly picking things up off the ground. Zayn looks up into the front face of the centre and notices one of the windows is open. Liam has his gun cocked and is just about to start his ‘stop right there’ shtick when the door of the Jeep swings closed on its own. It’s not loud but it’s enough to startle the person that Zayn sees two ears perk up.

 

“Shit” he hears Liam say followed by “Drop it.” He’s pointing his gun straight at this person with a slight sweat misting his forehead and starts running toward it. It’s a guy as far as he can tell and as soon as Liam starts moving he dashes off into the blackness behind the building with Liam in hot pursuit.

Zayn just then decides that maybe he should be of some use, the gun lying limply in his hand; he was never the greatest shot anyway. He hides in some shrubbery and waits to see if there’s anyone or anything moving around in the shadows.

 

He has to wait a few minutes before anything happens but soon enough another person climbs out of the window and slinks down the drainpipe connected to the side of the clinic. In the moonlight Zayn sees it clear as anything, his tail swaying with his movements, the death grip he has on the metal. Now or never.

 

“You there,” he’s surprised by how steady his voice comes out. The dude turns around, eyes blown out and hisses at Zayn which marked the only time he had seen a hybrid do that. He takes a step back but doesn’t run off which Zayn takes as a good sign. The guy turns around and tries to make a break for it.

“Stop, stop” the last one comes out as a whisper because he’s is already moving at a pace Zayn can’t possibly try to keep up with. So he stops following and feels around the ground for a rock. For the first time in his life he’s thankful for dodge ball and his ridiculously adept arm at the game. It hits the thief (?, he’ll go with thief) square between the shoulder blades in a muffled thud. Zayn watches him go down and it would be titillating if he was into that sort of thing.

 

He’s still writhing on the ground when Zayn reaches him. He aims his gun at the ground near the guy’s head with no intention of firing it. But before he can get the whole question out ‘what are you doing here?’ the boy has twisted his arm up in some blindingly painful professional wrestling hold that he could not wriggle an inch out of. The gun falls to the ground somewhere and Zayn can feel the tendons in his shoulder being stretched in ways they were just not used to, when the hybrid begins hitting him on the head with his free arm.

 

He wraps his tail around his neck and Zayn braces himself while tries to pry the boy’s legs open. It doesn’t do much and he can feel a warm wetness on the side of his face. Liam is nowhere to be seen and he’s certain if he doesn’t do something he’ll pass out very soon. He feels around the side of his leg and down to his calf and pulls out his hunting knife out of the strap of his boot. He doesn’t look where it goes but he buries it somewhere deep.

 

The grip around his neck and arm loosens and a sound like a siren fills the air. Zayn falls away from the boy and winces, he tastes metal in his mouth although he’s certain he wasn’t cut in the mouth, the pain he feels and the sheer pitch of the scream coming from the guy he just slashed make a potent concoction. He retches when he looks at what he’s done.

 

His hunting knife has gone right through the hybrid’s leg right above his left knee, and he’s clutching his leg like his life depended on it. It might, he spares a thought. Zayn thinks about removing the knife but decides against it that would probably make things worse. He touches a wound hidden somewhere in his hair and it stings more than his very tender shoulder. 

 

“Jesus, Zayn,” come Liam’s panting breaths from behind him. “What the fuck?!”

 

“Come on, help me up,” Zayn manages to say despite his general condition and in spite of what Liam just did.

 

He pulls Zayn up with his good arm and then goes back to the situation in front of them, “What the hell happened?” 

 

The boy’s once blue jeans are stained a dark shade of red and the blood keeps spreading with every passing second. “What do you think,” he grunts.

 

“We need to call Jay,” Liam paces and reiterates, “we need to call Jay man.”

 

Z can only nod. 

“Ok ok, get his side. We pull him up.” He orders and gets to work. Zayn is thankful for this high-functioning way that Liam gets when he’s stressed.

 

“Shouldn’t we like tie something around his leg or something? For the bleeding?”

 

“You know how to do that?”

 

The hybrid wails as soon as they move him then goes silent.

 

Z feels a tightening in his stomach that has nothing to do with his maybe dislocated shoulder, “Is he dead?”

 

Liam almost looks like he could laugh out loud, “I think he passed out.”

 

They get him in the back of the Jeep and immediately start arguing about exactly where they have to take him. 

“Why aren’t we taking him to your place again?”

 

“Because Zayn, because I’m not the one who stabbed a guy. Plus are you hearing yourself right now?” Liam shouts. “I live at HQ, you don’t.”

Zayn looks back at the dead weight in the back seat of Liam’s car and resolves to keep quiet for the rest of the night. He even offers to make the emergency call to Jay himself instead of letting Liam bear the brunt of the anger and frustration of being yanked out of bed at 3 in the morning to clean up somebody else’s mess.

 

Liam carries the hybrid all the way to Zayn’s apartment on the 4th floor on his back all by himself while Zayn settles on feeling sorry for himself and his soon to be blood stained couch. 

When Jay comes over all the colour drains from her face the moment she sets her eyes on him. “Why didn’t you tell me he was a hyb… you didn’t say he was one of them.” She whisper-shouts to no one at all.

 

“What difference does it make right now?” Liam says trying to scouring the fatigue off his face. “Are you gonna help us?”

 

There’s a pressing frown etched onto Jay’s brow but she moves forward, looks down at the heap on the sofa and immediately starts barking out orders at the both of them. 

 

The final thing she says before she leaves is ‘I was never here’ but in that moment she’s probably the best person that has ever existed to Z.

 

_

 

Daybreak finally reaches and Liam says the words Zayn has been dreading to hear all along. “We have to call it in.”

 

“Why?”

 

“ ‘Cause it’s the rules,” Liam backtracks just by the look on his face. “Look, I’m not sure what will happen to him, or you, but if my dad finds out I helped you hide a hybrid after nearly killing him...” he shakes his head.

 

Z says nothing.

 

“Things are bad right now. You know that. First with the water getting tainted then with the two dead bodies.”

 

“Two? What do you mean two?”

 

“There was another one a few days ago, it was a girl. Dad had to go do the dirty work himself this time.”

 

This strange weight comes over them, the consequences of what happened that night.

 

“Those two dudes weren’t going around killing people, they were stealing medical supplies. You saw it.”  
Liam gives him a long, hard, searching look, “I know.”  
Zayn gets the feeling he should have kept his mouth shut like he set out to do. Because the way Liam is looking at him, it’s a new one.

 

“You said you wouldn’t be like the rest of those freaks,” he says secretly hoping whatever guilt he has over what happened can be transferred to Liam.”

 

He lets out a sigh and puts his hands up, “Ok, let’s do this, we’ll keep him here until he gets a little better and I’ll put out some feelers on Louis, he can check this guy out himself.”

 

Zayn doesn’t give any reply but he also doesn’t need to. He almost felt like he was fighting for his life there for a second which is not something he ever imagined he would be doing. The ache from his new stiches will be enough reminder though.

-

He hoses down the couch cushions in the kitchen sink and lets them air dry in the balcony. He takes everything off and adds to the growing pile of clothes in the corner, which he then decides to launder after thinking it through. He assesses the damage in the bathroom mirror, his shoulder and wrist feel a mess but not dislocated, his head hurts. He dabs the blood off the back of the sofa with a towel and he throws a blanket over it when he can still see the tell-tale signs of something vaguely rust - coloured lingering in the fabric. He empties out the trash and mops up the floor. He stares at the person lying in his bed and thinks of the world of trouble he’s in.


End file.
